Work Text:
A reporter once asked if it bothered me that Eli was writing a book about my family. I didn’t respond then, but I’ll respond now; Eli is probably more of a Tennenbaum than me. As my father never forgot to remind me, I was never a Tennenbaum either. And Eli, at least, improved with age. I was always a fraud, but Eli has now made something profound, meaningful. We’ve agreed that it is that meaning combined with blood that makes a Tennenbaum.
But I suppose we were both wrong. It was only after his death that I realized that for good or ill (mostly ill) both Eli and I are Tenenbaums, if not by blood or name, but in something much harder to define. That being a Tennenbaum may just come down to your preferred state of fate or coincidence. But I’m making this about me, as I am prone to do.
Through various failures our family has found professional help, something we have been in need of for longer than we knew. This has led to gross self reflection, imperative, if painful, for a writer. It is this spirit, piteously and painfully honest, that this book is written. It is a portrait of a family, painstakingly broken, but almost sincere in their misery.
I have been a smoker for 23 years. This was a fact no one in my family knew until 11 months ago. My brother Chas drinks chamomile tea with honey every night before bed. He has since the age of 9, and I only found out 6 months ago. How little we know these people we grow up with; how little we know the people who shape us in our very foundation.
My father never knew I smoked because of him. I suppose I started because I thought he would notice, see himself in me. Realize I was his daughter, and him my father. Eli began smoking at 16, he writes, in the hope that royal Tennenbaum would notice. That he’d see him. For all my youthful posturing, Eli and I are the same, a fact underlined in this book.
Eli’s portrayal of me is kind, a benediction he steadfastly resolutes and one I don’t deserve. He unveils Richie and Chas as they are. Richie, loyal and innocent, the only one of us who ever truly had our father’s affection. Richie, kind, thoughtful, passive, distant, seemingly simple Richie. And Chas, passionate yet detached, the only one of us to live past our name. Chas, logical, practical, bitter, stubborn in a way that inverses our father.
To my mother, Eli is unflinchingly gentle. Royal’s favorite was Richie, but Etheline’s is Eli. In fairness, he doesn’t do any disservice by worshiping her. Eli is sentimental, but remains honest in a way we haven’t been since childhood. To my father, he is cautious. Royal Tennenbaum was a complicated man, and I don’t know if anyone understood him. Perhaps Pagoda did. Nevertheless, this is probably the clearest picture of a family, of our family, that could exist.
I admit that for many years I didn’t regard him as much of a writer. And while I stand by my indifference to his previous works, this has something none of the others did. Truth. Thus it is the best of his writings by a large margin, and altogether genius. And I don’t use that word lightly.